Knowledge… Isn’t Power?

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

I see a fair amount of movies with my brother.  One thing I’ve learned over time is that he and I have wildly divergent methods of vetting potential viewing choices. I go by feel.  If I decide that I want […]

by Chris Neumer

I see a fair amount of movies with my brother.  One thing I’ve learned over time is that he and I have wildly divergent methods of vetting potential viewing choices.

I go by feel.  If I decide that I want to see a movie, it’s usually based upon a random assortment of non-linear thoughts that range from, “Nice poster!” to, “Ooooh!  The color blue!” to the belief, on rare occasions, “That is going to be horrible, I want to see this train wreck.”  I will be the first to admit, there’s not any rhyme or reason to me wanting to see a given film.

When I do decide that I would like to see a movie, from that point on, I want as little information about a project as possible.  I don’t want to watch any trailers for it, I don’t want to see any clips on talk shows and I don’t want to read any reviews about it.  If I could somehow forget the information that I had already gleaned, I’d be a much happier man.  I like experiencing the mystery of what is yet to come.  I hate learning of key plot points ahead of time and downright abhor knowing about impending twist endings.  While there is always pleasure in the journey, the destination also plays an important part.  The adventure comes with having no idea where you’re going; the entertainment comes with how you get there.

In short, I constantly have to straddle the fine line between knowing enough to know that I want to see a movie and knowing so much that I stop wanting to.

My brother, on the other hand, tries to gather as much information about a movie as possible before ever deciding to see it.  Though not technically, you know, possible, his ideal situation would be one where he could see the movie before he saw the movie.

He reads copious amounts of reviews, articles, and comments prior to figuring out  whether he wants to see something and considers everything that everyone has to say before making his final decision.  He is especially and particularly enamored of the opinion of Slate Magazine’s film critic, Dana Stevens.  If Stevens gives something even a lukewarm review, that’s enough to remove it from his viewing radar.*

* My brother feels so strongly about Stevens’ opinions that if she were to write positively about genocide, he would nod appreciatively and quickly begin looking for a large club.

I’ve been pondering these different, but not quite mutually exclusive decision-making processes since the release of The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

As far as I can tell, there are three wildly generic reasons to see a movie: participating in an experience with characters you like, marveling at the film making craft and being told a story.  In this respect, it’s very much like a road trip.  You want to go somewhere fun, you want to do it with good people and you want to enjoy the trip as much as possible.

When I first learned that Fox had greenlit The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I found it a curious decision on several levels.  The most curious of these was the fact that it was a prequel.

I am not inherently against prequels, but they do start off with one very large drawback to them, namely, there isn’t much, if any, conflict in them.  It’s hard to worry about the fate of someone when you already know what happens to them.  It was mildly fun watching Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker’s light saber duel in Revenge of the Sith, but there was no drama or tension surrounding it; it’s hard to create drama and tension when everyone on the planet knows that Kenobi is going to win and that Skywalker is going to be horribly burned and maimed.

There aren’t any surprises as to where prequels are going; their endings have already been seen in previous movies.  As such, the studios have been trying desperately to remove the prequel label from these projects and instead have them referred to as ‘origin tales’.  It is a tempering of expectations that refocuses the audience on the build and explanations as opposed to the conflict resolution.  The X-Men series has gone so far as to weave this into the title of some of its films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the upcoming X-Men Origins: Deadpool.

Thus far in Hollywood, there have been only two truly successful (sets of) prequels: X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Star Wars: Episodes 1-3.  I suppose if you squint hard enough, you could also add Red Dragon to that list.  The one trait that these films have in common though is that they are the origin tales of three of the greatest characters ever created: Anakin Skywalker (read: Darth Vader), Wolverine, and Hannibal Lecter.  It’s obvious why these movies were made; just about everyone had some desire to learn about where these people/mutants came from and how they got to be who they are.

As evidenced by its title, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes diverges quite broadly from this model.  It isn’t about shedding light on the franchise’s characters—to even suggest that the franchise has characters seems off—it’s about the specifics of how the apes came to power.  And maybe there were people out there who were clamoring to know this, but, much like making an entire movie devoted to why the shark in Jaws decided to summer in Amity Island in 1976, it just felt pointless without more context.

The apes won.  End of story.  Did it really matter why?

Well, it did to Fox.  In making a prequel, the studio hung its hat on the specifics.  Audiences knew going in that the Apes were going to rise up, but the devil and entertainment value were in the details.  I mean, they had to be in the details, they weren’t in the destination or the characters.

However, this turned out to be categorically false.

I learned exactly how false two days before the movie opened.  That was when I  saw one of The Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ TV spots.  The first eight seconds of the ad were more than enough spell out every major plot point of the movie for me.  Those first eight seconds feature the following three bits of dialogue.  James Franco’s character stating, “This drug could save millions of lives.”  That was followed by Franco’s character explaining, “We test one subject.”  And that was then followed by John Lithgow’s character remarking of a chimpanzee, “Oh, he’s a smart one?  Isn’t he?”

And just like that, the apes rise to power was explained.

Humans were trying to find some miracle cure, tested it on apes and, in the process, made them super smart.  It’s like Deep Blue Sea, only with gorillas.

I took a moment after seeing this commercial to revel in the unique situation surrounding The Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  It was a movie with no uniquely compelling characters that’s ending was well known more than forty years ago, that’s storyline was completely explained in the first eight seconds of its TV commercial.

This was truly unprecedented territory: there was absolutely no reason for me to see this movie.  Not only were there no characters pulling me to the project, but I knew where it was going and I knew how it was going to get there too.

After thinking about this for a while, it struck me that this was, in its own way, a great reason to see the movie.  Assuredly not the reason that the studio was hoping I’d go see it, but a reason nonetheless.  I called my brother and asked him if he was interested.  Since Stevens had approved of The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he was.  He was slightly confused at the fact that I wanted to see the movie though.  Not having any reason to see a movie shouldn’t actually be a reason, but as I clarified earlier, there isn’t much logic at work in my viewing choices.

So see the film we did.  Everything unfolded the way we expected it to, the action was so-so and the majority of the film felt like something we had to sit through before we could get to the ending… which we already knew.  The only real surprise was that the explanation for what killed off the majority of humanity came after the end credits rolled.  It was as disappointing a viewing experience as I can remember having.  As my brother and I exited the theater, he looked at me and said, “The next time you can’t think of a single reason to see a movie, I think we’re going to stay home.”

It’s hard to argue with that.